Pillar 1: Student Change Makers across History
Students in particular sit in a position ripe for change making for a multitude of reasons, including that they as young people have the most at stake. As youth, we've all grown up experiencing the challenges, the injustices, the areas of growth our society has, all from a personal position without the platform or empowerment to make change in the institutional cultures. We see across the globe and across history, great movements for change from students to break from the norm in efforts to improve their futures.
Student activism has been alive at the university level for as nearly as long as the University itself. Students have taken on, and continue to take on, international issues (like apartheid or the Israeli occupation of the West Bank), national issues (such as sexual harassment and misconduct), and campus or local issues.
Student Civil Rights Activists
“Young People, especially young people of color, are the moral compass of the United States.
Movements that don’t happen in the same way without young people include the Civil Rights Movement, the Gay Liberation Movement, the Black Power Movement, the Chicano Movement, and the #BlackLivesMatter Movement.”
-Dr. David Turner, Postdoctoral Fellow at the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies.
Through the Civil Rights movement, the nation witnessed young people harness their collective power to organize for the first time. As they entered the ranks of the movement’s leadership, students and other youth became a vital force, energizing the civil rights movement. Areas of youth activism included school integration, lunch counter sit-ins, freedom rides, voting rights marches.
SNCC and SDS
During the 60's, the great wave of student activism took place. This saw the rise of many student organizations mobilizing the efforts to make change in the country. Two of them we'll highlight are the SNCC and SDS.
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
Created to organize students participating in the civil rights movement sit-ins and to support them, the SNCC was a interracial Black-led organization founded out of the Shaw conference. They were largely involved in the Freedom Rides and the voting rights campaign of Freedom Summer.
"The humanity of all americans is diminished when any group is denied rights granted to others." - Julian Bond, founder of SNCC
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)
Inspired by the civil rights movement, the SDS was created in support and solidarity for the southern movement by white northern college students. Their goal was to follow SNCC's lead and promote grassroots efforts for equality, economic justice, peace, and participatory democracy. In its later years, it heavily focused its attention on the war in Vietnam.
“We owe SNCC a deep debt of gratitude for having slapped us brutally in the face with the slogan of Black Power, a slogan which said to white radicals: ‘Go home and organize in white America which is your reality and which only you are equipped to change.’” -Greg Calvert, SDS national secretary 1967
UCB's Free Speech Movement
The Free Speech Movement began in 1964 when UC Berkeley students protested the university’s restrictions on political activities on campus. Small sit-ins and demonstrations escalated into a series of large-scale rallies and protests demanding full constitutional rights on campus. This led to the university overturning policies that would restrict the content of speech or advocacy. Today, the Movement stands as a symbol of the importance of protecting and preserving free speech and academic freedom.
“The Free Speech Movement was the first revolt of the 1960s to bring to a college campus the mass civil disobedience tactics pioneered in the civil rights movement. Those tactics, most notably the sit-in, would give students unprecedented leverage to make demands on university administrators, setting the stage for mass student protests against the Vietnam War.”
Robert Cohen, author of Freedom’s Orator
Above: Students involved in the Free Speech Movement at UCB reflect upon the events that took place.
The famous segment of Mario Savio's speech is below:
Upon the conclusion of the protests that took place, Mario proceeded to give another speech emphasizing the importance of inquiry and discourse on university and college campuses:
Additional Examples of Youth Activism
Moving Forward
Ahead, you will get a look at John R. Lewis and his history as a student change maker.